%20 in names of downloaded files

Question

franz walter Author

Level 1

8 points

%20 in names of downloaded files

Safari puts the html representation of spaces and special characters into filenamens. THis looks like:

"Rechnungspr%C3%BCfschein%20Barbelege"
"Benutzerhandbuch%20infoathand%20V1.0"

Which is crazy because Chrome for Mac does this correctly:

"Rechnungsprüfschein Barbelege"

Also on Windows these filename issues are unknown. When calling Apple Support on this they told me this was the expected behaviour of safari as it was programmed to do this? How can this be? Users are going mad about these mangled filenames. Should I really tell them to use Chrome instead of Safari if they want a basic task like downloading a file be done correctly?

Help!

OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Jan 9, 2014 6:00 AM

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Answer 1

Jun 28, 2017 11:36 AM in response to franz walter

Wow. Its 2017 and this issue has not been fixed. I just started using the Outlook Web Client as my company is migrating away from local email and a local copy of MS Outlook toward keeping all email permanently in their corporate cloud to be access from any device (computer browser, mobile phone email client, etc).

So I've been trying to download file attachments to my computer and the filenames are being corrupted with %20 replacing spaces. Was pulling my hair out and finally googled the problem and found this thread.

Its mind boggling that Apple would consider this to be proper behavior and not flag and fix it as a bug for years.

From my perspective, ANY modification of a file during transmission via any medium is file corruption. A file moved from one place to another should retain exactly identical contents, size, name, dates, and all the various hidden attributes. It seems like people think its okay to just retain the contents but alter other aspects of the file. This really screws up systems to track modifications, backup, detect lost or corrupted files, etc.

Please don't do it! When a system takes on the challenge of transporting or storing our precious files, it needs to accept the responsibility to preserve all aspects of the files without modification.

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Answer 2

Jan 9, 2014 6:40 AM in response to franz walter

It's the expected, normal behavior for Safari to use the same path (including the %20) as that found in the URL.

Web based files can't have spaces or some symbols in their URL's.

When the download window is opened you have the option of editing the name of the file before you save it.

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Answer 3

franz walter Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 9, 2014 9:00 AM in response to QuickTimeKirk

Hi and thanks for your reply.

BUT most web files the ordinary office user has to deal with every day DO have lots of spaces in their URL's. Think about web based email with attachments. I never saw anybody in the last 15 years making the attachment's file name "web compatible" before attaching the file and hitting the send button. And every person with normal expectations to browser behaviour would expect to find the download file having the exactly same name as is displayed in the browser window. This is what almost all Browsers except safari do. And they do it well. This is what the rest of the world sees as "functioning" download.

Safari keeps annoying all my users all day long as they constantly have to rename mangled file names of downloaded email attachments. Whoever at apple is responsible for this weird design decision might eventually think this is how the web has to work to be compatible with safari on Mac. But the web and the billions of non- mac-safari users just won't care. They don't even notice the problems. Only mac customers are forced by apple to suffer for using the apple native browser. I am a mac user for more than 20 years. I expect safari to "just work" as the mac is advertised.

Spending time with retyping filenames all day long while THE OTHER BROWSERS JUST WORK istn't a perspective.

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Answer 4

Jan 9, 2014 9:09 AM in response to franz walter

I haven't used a Web browser to pull down my email since the late '90's. Mac Mail app doesn't worry about spaces in file names used in attachments and doesn't change them when you move the attachment from the email.

What is your ISP and are they the cause of your mangled file names?

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Answer 5

franz walter Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 9, 2014 11:55 AM in response to QuickTimeKirk

About two years ago we moved to a strictly browser based CRM system which we are hosting ourselves. The CRM server connects to all mailboxes and retrieves email for all users. Inbound as well as outbound email is automatically connected on the server to contacts, companies, opportunities, customer service cases and so on. Therefore all email is linked to all relevant data inside the CRM system, archived there and accessible to all users within the appropriate context they need. If they look at customer John Doe they immediately see all email related to him regardless of which user sent or received it.

This is the reason why we do not allow usage of email client software because this would defeat the purpose of the centralised CRM system of having a consistent, complete and up to date contact history at every time.

We receive a lot of files from customers and never had any problems for the last two years when using firefox on PC. On the phone today with apple tech support I installed google chrome for mac for a test and the file names of downloads were ok. But I would prefer using Safari for several reasons. Especially as it shines in full screen mode and leaves lots of space for the relatively crowded CRM screen.

I just can't imagine any valid reason for apple not to let safari decode the html encoded filename for disk storage and instead plague the user with this kind of annoying data entry tasks.

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Answer 6

Feb 28, 2014 3:00 AM in response to QuickTimeKirk

"I haven't used a Web browser to pull down my email since the late '90's. Mac Mail app doesn't worry about spaces in file names used in attachments and doesn't change them when you move the attachment from the email."

Others have gone the other way - why fill up your hard drive space (which can be limited if you have an SSD, macbook air etc) by downloading all your mail and attachments when you can leave it all in the cloud?

The Outlook Web App + safari results in disfigured file names that can be a real PITA. So, anyone using office 365 or any other modern exchange, live, hotmail address will be imacted by Safari's re tarded behaviour.

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